Program for Calculating Parabolas

About This Program

The purpose of this program was to try to find a simple way to calculate the (x, y) coordinates of the points along the curve of a parabola, so folks could easily make their own solar collectors with reasonable efficiency. I saw a site that showed how to use a T-Square to make a parabola, and it didn't look very simple. I thought that anyone using a computer might want to try this approach for an easy way to get the coordinates. This program lets the user pick how many line segments the parabola will be constructed with, so they control how many cuts and sections of material they have to make. Please send bug reports, suggestions or feedback here mscir@hotmail.com. I appreciate hearing all of your comments.

Thanks to Bernhard S. Müller for beta testing the program.

Download the Program

This program was written in Visual Basic 6, and should run on Window 95 or any later version of Windows. It requires the Visual Basic 6 Runtime files, but your computer may already have them installed. I would try downloading the smaller file first and seeing if it runs. If not, just delete it and download the full Windows Installation Package. This will do a standard Window Installation of this program on your computer. 

Download the zipped Parabola.exe 69 kB 
(does NOT include the Visual Basic Runtime Files).

Download the zipped Windows Installation Files 1.45 MB 
(unzip to a folder, run the Setup.exe file, this installs all necessary files.)

Download the VB6 Source Code for this project 76 kB